Huntsville Utilities spokesperson explains cause for massive power outage in downtown Huntsville Gary Whitley with Huntsville Utilities said crews were able to identify, replace, and repair the equipment that led to an outage Monday afternoon. Posted: Jul 13, 2021 6:38 PM Posted By: Sophia Borrelli The utility now says the weekend weather played a role in what happened. A spokesperson with Huntsville Utilities said the main cause of Monday's outage was an equipment failure within the downtown Huntsville substation. He said even though the light stayed on during strong thunderstorms Sunday evening, it sometimes take days for them to see an impact. "Sometimes after storms, weather related events, you can have after effects where equipment may not fail during the actual weather event, but my fail later and that's was the case," said Gary Whitley, Huntsville Utilities Communications and Public Relations manager.